“I’m assigned with the task to write an essay about myself, but I have no idea what to start with…” Perhaps, this sounds very familiar for you. Fortunately, you are not alone with your troubles. There are many aspects you have to take into account when working on the personal essay. First of all, one should come up with the ideas for the essay. Whether the author is provided with a prompt or he is starting from scratch, coming up with the right idea can be a pretty tough thing. But the trick is that one should write about the experience that not everybody goes through. It may be the birth of the brother, the first day at the camp, the moment, when your article was published in the local newspaper, the wedding day or a certain achievement that has a solid meaning. All in all, the personal essay is the story of the author’s life – or at least, a story focused on one significant moment in life. As a result, the author must start the paper by a hooking fact in order to capture the reader’s attention. Saying something unexpected is a really great idea for the opening! For instance: “The tornado broke through the city. I heard the wind was whistling as me and my younger brother were hiding in the bathroom…” This will impress your reader as well as make him want to know more about what happened in your life.
Sometimes the author feels like he is about to write about sensitive issues in an essay. Well, that is not a bad idea, but you need to remember that you must pick the appropriate material for the target audience. While it is not a big deal to discuss such topics as poverty or mental diseases in the personal essay for a college application, it’s better to stay away from the topics like cheating on the finals in a school or betraying your best friend in a very important moment of life, even if you only wrote about this for a dramatic effect. There is no need to pretend to be a villain.
A lot of people may wonder how to talk about the other people within the essay without identifying them without their consent. The whole point is that when it comes to writing the essays of this type, there’s nothing bad if you decide to bring changes to some details or facts such as dates and names if it is important to respect the others.
For a great number of people, the only thing that may be more challenging that the beginning of the essay is the concluding section. The thing is that the story of your life is not at the final point. However, there are some good recommendations on how to properly end up the paper of this type.
First of all, where is the end of the story you are sharing? If you’re telling about how you and your family got over the tornado, you may pick the moment where your family is finally re-united. If your story is dedicated to recovering after the death of your parent, make sure to choose the moment when you felt you began to heal.
Just turn on your creativity. Keep in mind the fact that the personal essay doesn’t have be truthful from A to Z. Still, it does not mean you should think of it only from the creative point of view. The author must do his best to properly mix both real facts and a little bit of fantasy – after all, that is what makes a good story.